Bernd Lange, on behalf of the S&D Group. – Mr President, as Chair of the Committee on International Trade, I want to request the postponement of the debate on the state of the US-EU trade negotiations.

Just a few days ago the Commissioner presented a draft mandate for negotiation and just today the implementation of the trade relations was published. So the Committee on International Trade thinks that we should have more time to have a profound and critical discussion about these documents and present a resolution to the plenary to have a position of the Parliament.

The Committee on International Trade is preparing a resolution and, therefore, we would like to postpone the debate with the Commission statement and the winding-up resolution until the March I plenary.

Ska Keller (Verts/ALE). – Mr President, the thing is that the Council has the Commission’s draft for the negotiation mandate with the US right now on the table, so if this Parliament wants to have any say at all about what’s being negotiated then we have to make our position clear now. We cannot wait for later. Later on we will not play any role, we will not have any say, and then we will again be totally out of the procedure.

I am very astonished because the S&D Group has so far always fought very hard for the formal involvement of the European Parliament, so I’m very astonished by this proposal and I would like to ask colleagues to reject the postponement proposal and let’s rather talk about what our position is, what our demands are for the mandate, for the negotiation, and let’s make sure that Parliament’s voice will be heard in this.

Fabio Massimo Castaldo, on behalf of the EFDD Group. – Mr President, Rule 227 provides that amendments to the Rules of Procedure are to be examined by the committee responsible, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs. This is a rule but it is also a basic democratic principle. However, tomorrow we will vote three amendments to the Corbett report on the revision of the Rules of Procedure which, although of utmost significance, were never tabled or discussed during the many meetings of the working group and the committee.

The S&D with Jo Leinen, the PPE with György Schöpflin and ALDE with Mr Goerens require that the decision on the future existence of political groups be put into the hands of the absolute majority of Parliament through a vote on their political affinity. On the basis of which parameter? No parameter is established in this proposal. Is there – and this is a question – a political affinity between you, Mr Schöpflin, and your Group after it split up on the Sargentini report which called for the activation of Article 7 against Hungary, led by your party? Just a little more than a quarter of your PPE colleagues voted in favour of your government. Should you already go with the non-attached? This is not, I think, a rhetorical question.

And you, Mr Leinen, apparently find elements of political affinity on the interpretation of the principles of democracy with the exponents of Fidesz that you were criticising so much in this plenary on other occasions. Do not speak also about ALDE that many times showed us very different votes – Mr Goerens who until very recently was sitting beside Members of those groups which collected signatures for Finland’s exit from the euro despite the pro—federal rhetoric. Democracy means first and foremost granting the opposition’s rights. It can never turn into a tyranny of the majority. On behalf of the EFDD Group, I ask for the postponement of the vote on the Corbett report in line with Rule 149a.

(Applause)

Richard Corbett (S&D), Rapporteur. – Mr President, that was all very interesting, but not entirely relevant to the procedural point that was moved, which was to shift the debate, and presumably the vote, of course, on this report to a subsequent part-session on the grounds that there hasn’t been enough time to consider this report. I would remind the House that this report was drafted by a working group of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO), a working group in which every Group was represented. It then went to the AFCO Committee as a whole. It has now come before Parliament. It is subject to amendments in the usual way, as with previous rules reports, as indeed with most of our reports, there are amendments that come up and new compromises that emerge at the plenary stage. It was already postponed from December to January I. It was postponed from January I to January II.

I wonder whether he’s taking a leaf out of the book of Mrs May about kicking the can down the road further and further and further until there is no time left to deal with it – maybe that is what is intended by the EFDD Group? In any case, I recommend that Parliament do not follow that.

(Mixed reactions)

Ska Keller, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, just to clarify, our proposal is to have a fully fledged debate on the Corbett report. For us, whether we have it now or in February is not the point; we don’t need to postpone it.

What we want to do is debate it, because Parliament should have a proper debate about what rules of procedure we’re going to use for forming the Groups. That is a matter of concern for all the Groups. It is a serious matter. So we should have a proper debate about that and know what we are going to vote about rather than just doing it in a couple of minutes.

The whole report has really serious implications: on the formation of a group, the question of what sort of lobbyism would be allowed and whether we have learned from the Me Too movement. This concerns really a lot of things so we should have a proper debate; that’s our point of view. We can have a proper debate now, no problem, we don’t have to do it in February. We can do it in February but now the question is simply, do we have a debate? That’s our request: to have a full debate.

(Il Parlamento respinge la richiesta del gruppo EFDD)

Ska Keller, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, then I would like to request that we have a full debate on the Corbett report in this plenary session.